Here are 100 books that Game Theory fans have personally recommended if you like
Game Theory.
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I grew up listening and participating in discussions about politics. These discussions often ended up on Economics – after all, “it’s the economy, stupid!”. Game theory, by being very broad and focused on strategic interactions, served as a very rewarding unifying apparatus for my understanding of Economics. It is also very beautiful and elegant, combining the austere beauty of pure mathematics with insights from elegant literature – I was pleased to cite Graham Green’s Our Man in Havana in a recent paper. It has accompanied me in a 20-year career since my PhD in Economics at the University of Minnesota to my current professorship in Economics at the University of Surrey.
This is a great book that contains the main papers that shaped game theory.
It starts with John Nash’s 1950 paper which made game theory applicable to an essentially unlimited set of situations: all that involve several people or institutions taking decisions that matter for all those involved.
The book also includes work that enriches the framework of game theory by adding incomplete information, dynamic and stochastic elements, and cooperative considerations.
Many developments in game theory were motivated by concrete applications in Economics and other social sciences and the book shows this too, namely by considering bargaining, competitive economies, and market games.
This book really portrays the evolution of game theory from its beginnings to its heyday.
This text assembles in one sourcebook the basic contributions to the field of game theory that followed on from the publication of "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior" by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944. In the "heroic era" of research that began in the late-1940s, the foundations of the current theory were laid; is is these fundamental contributions that are collected in this volume. In the last 15 years, game theory has become the dominant model in economic theory and has made significant contributions to political science, biology and international security studies. The central role of game…
I grew up listening and participating in discussions about politics. These discussions often ended up on Economics – after all, “it’s the economy, stupid!”. Game theory, by being very broad and focused on strategic interactions, served as a very rewarding unifying apparatus for my understanding of Economics. It is also very beautiful and elegant, combining the austere beauty of pure mathematics with insights from elegant literature – I was pleased to cite Graham Green’s Our Man in Havana in a recent paper. It has accompanied me in a 20-year career since my PhD in Economics at the University of Minnesota to my current professorship in Economics at the University of Surrey.
When the goal is to have an appealing introduction to game theory, with plenty of economic applications, there can hardly be any book better than this one.
It covers the core elements of game theory in a simple, yet careful, way, always illustrating them with expertly chosen economic problems. A must for anyone wanting to enter the world of game theory.
This book's introduces one of the most powerful tools of modern economics to a wide audience - not only those who will specialize as pure game theorists but also those who will construct (or even just consume) game-theoretic models in applied fields of economics.
I grew up listening and participating in discussions about politics. These discussions often ended up on Economics – after all, “it’s the economy, stupid!”. Game theory, by being very broad and focused on strategic interactions, served as a very rewarding unifying apparatus for my understanding of Economics. It is also very beautiful and elegant, combining the austere beauty of pure mathematics with insights from elegant literature – I was pleased to cite Graham Green’s Our Man in Havana in a recent paper. It has accompanied me in a 20-year career since my PhD in Economics at the University of Minnesota to my current professorship in Economics at the University of Surrey.
An excellent textbook on game theory which is unashamedly advanced: no shortcut is taken, no distractions, no simplifications, rather it goes straight to the point and all the details are there.
It is a great book for researchers to learn the important topics in game theory and its fine details.
I have been pleased with the favourable reception of the first edition of this book and I am grateful to have the opportunity to prepare this second edition. In this revised and enlarged edition I corrected some misprints and errors that occurred in the first edition (fortunately I didn't find too many) and I added a large number of notes that give the reader an impression of what kind of results have been obtained since the first edition was printed and that give an indication of the direction the subject is taking. Many of the notes discuss (or refer to…
I grew up listening and participating in discussions about politics. These discussions often ended up on Economics – after all, “it’s the economy, stupid!”. Game theory, by being very broad and focused on strategic interactions, served as a very rewarding unifying apparatus for my understanding of Economics. It is also very beautiful and elegant, combining the austere beauty of pure mathematics with insights from elegant literature – I was pleased to cite Graham Green’s Our Man in Havana in a recent paper. It has accompanied me in a 20-year career since my PhD in Economics at the University of Minnesota to my current professorship in Economics at the University of Surrey.
Game theory has specialized in several topics; one of my favorites and one of the most important ones is repeated games since they describe and analyze the sort of ongoing relationships that most of us experience.
This book has it all: great examples and motivation, detailed and formal presentation of a very broad set of results.
Personalized and continuing relationships play a central role in any society. Economists have built upon the theories of repeated games and reputations to make important advances in understanding such relationships. Repeated Games and Reputations begins with a careful development of the fundamental concepts in these theories, including the notions of a repeated game, strategy, and equilibrium. Mailath and Samuelson then present the classic folk theorem and reputation results for games of perfect and imperfect public monitoring, with the benefit of the modern analytical tools of decomposability and self-generation. They also present more recent developments, including results beyond folk theorems and…
I am Professor of Economics at Washington State University. My research focuses on applying Industrial Organization to polluting industries and other regulated markets. I analyze how firms strategically respond to environmental regulation, including their output and pricing decisions, their investments in clean technologies, and mergers decisions, both under complete and incomplete information contexts.
This book is highly recommended for students in graduate programs with a strong game theory and mechanism design focus.
As MWG, it is especially technical in some chapters, but its writing is more “modern” in Introductions and other sections, helping the reader “see the forest” a bit more easily than with other books. The math appendix is also excellent and exercises are a good challenge for strong students.
I am a Professor of Economics at Washington State University. My research focuses on applying Game Theory and Industrial Organization models to polluting industries and other regulated markets. I analyze how firms strategically respond to environmental regulation, including their output and pricing decisions, their investments in clean technologies, and merger decisions, both under complete and incomplete information contexts.
An excellent game theory book for graduate students, especially for Master's students taking second-year elective courses on game theory, and even technical enough for the first-year Ph.D. Microeconomics course (since most schools spend most of the second semester covering game theory, contract theory, and applications.)
Rigorous, with detailed definitions and notation, yet accessible to senior undergraduate students at top schools (with a strong math background) or Master's students.
This comprehensive textbook introduces readers to the principal ideas and applications of game theory, in a style that combines rigor with accessibility. Steven Tadelis begins with a concise description of rational decision making, and goes on to discuss strategic and extensive form games with complete information, Bayesian games, and extensive form games with imperfect information. He covers a host of topics, including multistage and repeated games, bargaining theory, auctions, rent-seeking games, mechanism design, signaling games, reputation building, and information transmission games. Unlike other books on game theory, this one begins with the idea of rationality and explores its implications for…
As a wannabe rockstar studying philosophy and mathematics, never in my wildest nightmare did I imagine I would one day earn a living traveling the world, helping corporate managers become better bosses. But in unexpected ways, all the different strands of my interests and passions have woven together into a work-life well lived, with over two decades of experience and contemplation distilled down into this book I have co-written with my friend and business partner, Bjorn Billhardt, CEO of Abilitie.
For decades, I was unsatisfied with the definitions of “leadership” I would read. For one thing, they failed to account for why we need the term “leader” when the more humdrum “manager” would do just fine. To me, the word "leader" will always be linked to 20th-century fascism, so I'm reluctant to use the word casually. Additionally, many conventional definitions of leadership are just laundry lists of virtuous behavior we’d really like to see in anyone, not just “leaders.”
At the same time, I was fascinated with game theory. This book brought those two strands, leadership and game theory, together.
Miller opened my eyes to the fact that there was something that could be called “leadership” that helped explain a nagging puzzle in game theory, namely how we are able to overcome social dilemmas and cooperate with each other, even in the absence of brute incentive systems provided by “mere”…
In organisation theory a schism has developed between the traditional organisational behaviour literature, based in psychology, sociology and political science, and the more analytically rigorous field of organisational economics. The former stresses the importance of managerial leadership and cooperation among employees, while the latter focuses on the engineering of incentive systems that will induce efficiency and profitability, by rewarding worker self-interest. In this innovative book, Gary Miller bridges the gap between these literatures. He demonstrates that it is impossible to design an incentive system based on self-interest that will effectively discipline all subordinates and superiors and obviate or overcome the…
I am a Professor of Economics at Washington State University. My research focuses on applying Game Theory and Industrial Organization models to polluting industries and other regulated markets. I analyze how firms strategically respond to environmental regulation, including their output and pricing decisions, their investments in clean technologies, and merger decisions, both under complete and incomplete information contexts.
This is an excellent, non-technical introduction to game theory, covering most topics, including incomplete information games and evolutionary game theory.
Packed with real-life examples, along with humorous and historical notes, the book is appropriate for undergraduate students from different majors, including political science, history, psychology, and biology.
The book focuses on presenting topics at the undergraduate level, avoiding difficult notation and jargon, and minimizing the math, thus not being a good fit for technical courses in game theory at the Master's and Ph.D. levels, but again, it’s one of the best introductions to game theory for non-technical readers currently available.
Written for majors courses in economics, business, political science, and international relations, but accessible to students across the undergraduate spectrum, Joseph Harrington's innovative textbook makes the tools and applications of game theory and strategic reasoning both fascinating and easy to understand. Each chapter focuses a specific strategic situation as a way of introducing core concepts informally at first, then more fully, with a minimum of mathematics. At the heart of the book is a diverse collection of strategic scenarios, not only from business and politics, but from history, fiction, sports, and everyday life as well. With this approach, students don't…
I’m a leading expert in how your mental game impacts performance. For over a decade I’ve coached hundreds of poker players, including some of the best players in the world. My clients include numerous bracelet winners at the World Series of Poker, and winners of other major titles. I have a passion for helping players become great, and many of them have climbed the ranks to become among of the best in the world. Whatever you aspire to in poker, whether it’s making some money off your friends or competing in the WSOP, be sure to pick up the books I’ve recommended—they can make a big difference!
This book is one of the best-selling poker books of the modern era despite the author not being a household name. It is a brilliant and dense primer on poker math with the amateur in mind. Other poker math books have arguably been written with a more expert tone, but this one is ideal for a beginner.
More Than 150 Pages of New Material with Greatly Expanded Content and 4 New Chapters
Over 75 Carefully Devised Practice and Example Poker Hands That Are Analyzed in Great Detail
Free Enrollment into My 10-Hour Essential Poker Math eLearning Online Video Training Course
Poker Math Is Easy to LearnPoker math is a vitally important aspect of No Limit Hold’em poker. But, it's often overlooked or simply not used because many poker players fear it is too difficult to learn. I'm here to tell you it’s not. In fact, fundamental poker math…
I am a Professor of Economics at Washington State University. My research focuses on applying Game Theory and Industrial Organization models to polluting industries and other regulated markets. I analyze how firms strategically respond to environmental regulation, including their output and pricing decisions, their investments in clean technologies, and merger decisions, both under complete and incomplete information contexts.
This book is a short introduction to undergraduate-level Game Theory, with a special focus on basic games of complete information and contracts.
It avoids jargon, notation, or formal definitions but emphasizes economic intuition and offers many examples in each chapter. Some chapters require a good math background, making the book a good fit for students who already took at least one course in algebra and calculus.
Joel Watson has refined his successful text to make it even more student-friendly. A number of sections have been added, and numerous chapters have been substantially revised. Dozens of new exercises have been added, along with solutions to selected exercises. Chapters are short and focused, with just the right amount of mathematical content and end-of-chapter exercises. New passages walk students through tricky topics.
